All those candidates who really need and want a job? This is horrible news for them. Every search on campus is gone, and probably not going to be re-opened for a couple years. We're just later to do it than most campuses, which really means that we've given people false hope for longer than the other places. So we're crueler.

I figure I've spent 50+ hours on the UWB search between this semester and last. And poof, that work means nothing.

The way faculty time works, we're just asked to do search committee work on top of other stuff; I didn't drop any of my other committee responsibilities, nor my teaching responsibilities, nor advising, nor research. I just added an extra week's worth of work to evenings and weekends and the break. And that doesn't "cost" the university anything visible because we just add it on as part of our responsibilities.

The money we spent on advertising, interviews, campus visits, that is, the money that's way more visible than faculty time, gone. Also gone is the time our administrative staff spent organizing the search materials. (And if you've never seen an office staff organize a search with 100+ candidates, making sure that everything gets where it needs to be, you need to know that it takes a load of work.)

I'm just waiting for my top-choice school to send me the same demoralizing information. They are having a budget meeting today and the hiring will either be approved or axed. I suppose that means I'll hear something for sure within the next week, but I am not optimistic. Fortunately, the school where I teach Shakespeare part-time wants me back for the fall. Of course, it doesn't pay enough to be worth it, but I'll do it anyway so I can keep my hat in the ring. Sigh.

I'm sorry that you and the other people involved had so much invested and that it's all gone down the tubes. It's terrible news for all involved.

We're waiting to hear the word on whether our in-progress search and LTA rehire are going poof at the same time as the administration wants to start offering a full degree program in our major at a satellite campus with one full-time faculty member and a raft of adjuncts. Bring in the money but don't tell the students that they're not getting what they pay for when there aren't any professors to teach a fair chunk of the curriculum!

It's happened at my place, too. The freeze was announced while a candidate long in the wooing for a senior search was winging his way here. Not a happy situation, but there's the (small) consolation that it's happening at every kind of U.

Same here. We had four positions open. Now we're going to be able to hire one -- maybe. No one else on campus gets to hire anyone. No one. Anyone. And every department had two or three positions open this year.